Give a Little Bit
by Hunsdon
Summary: "He thought he knew. That she likes the book. That she likes him and he's forgiven. That she didn't want him to leave and he didn't want to go. He thought they'd turned a corner, but here they are. It's her birthday and they're leaving him out. It hurts." Three-shot set on Beckett's 30th birthday, shortly after Love Me Dead (2 x 09).
1. Chapter 1

Title: Give a Little Bit, Ch. 1

WC: ~1400 this chapter

Summary: "He _thought _he knew. That she likes the book. That she likes _him _and he's forgiven_. _That she didn't want him to leave and he didn't want to go. He thought they'd turned a corner, but here they are. It's her birthday and they're leaving him out. It hurts." Three-shot set on Beckett's 30th birthday, shortly after Love Me Dead (2 x 09).

* * *

><p>Give a little bit<br>I'll give a little bit of my love to you  
>There's so much that we need to share<br>Send a smile and show you care

* * *

><p>It hurts.<p>

He tries not to think about it, but it's no good. He's _hurt _that they're leaving him out. Esposito, sure. But Ryan? Lanie?

Beckett.

That, he should have expected, he supposes. Except he'd thought they'd turned a corner lately. Him leaving and then not leaving. The book coming out, and he knows she likes it. That it makes her blush and squirm and roll her eyes, but it pleases her, too. The book itself. The dedication and that one honest moment between them.

_I meant it. You are extraordinary. _

Unusual. Perfect. A relief, even if it all went to hell from there. That one moment was a relief.

They're not in the habit of just _saying _things, and it's weird for him. He lives with his mother, after all. He lives with a teenager who wears her heart on his sleeve, and he's never been one to have much of a filter until now. Until her, and usually it's ok that they don't say things.

It's . . . _interesting _the way thoughts push at one another in his own head. The keen edge of anticipation in the way he curls his tongue around things he shouldn't say, because that's not how they are, and she knows anyway.

_He _knows. Whatever she says or doesn't say, he _knows. _From the flick of her eyes, away and back. From the flutter of lashes and the jut of her hip. How sharp she makes the angle of her jaw and the pale indentation of teeth at the corner of her lip. The way her tongue peeps out and retreats to carry away all the things she's not saying either.

He _thought _he knew. That she likes the book. That she likes _him _and he's forgiven_. _That she didn't want him to leave and he didn't want to go.

He thought they'd turned a corner, but here they are. It's her birthday and they're leaving him out.

It hurts.

* * *

><p>He blames it on coincidence.<p>

It's a big year, he supposes, and women care more about that kind of thing, don't they? Round-number birthdays. God knows Gina had cared, and he'd screwed that up royally, way back when. He pushes the painful memory away, and tells himself that's what's really going on with Beckett.

He tells himself they _have _turned a corner, and it's just an accident of the calendar that makes it awkward. She likes him and he likes her, but you don't spend your thirtieth with just anyone.

And he must be just anyone. He must not make the cut.

It's no good at all. It makes him _more _miserable, somehow. For a long afternoon It does, anyway, and she loses her patience with him. She snaps and walks away like she hasn't done in weeks, and he can't even blame her, because it's _interesting _the way they don't say things, but it sucks, too. He'd snap and walk away from himself, if only he could.

It doesn't last, though. That particular funk, because it doesn't fit. _Women _might care—in general they might—but he can't see it on her. When he closes his eyes and calls her up and the words are there—unstoppable sometimes—he never sees her leaning in close to the mirror to search for wrinkles. He can't picture her plucking a single grey hair from the dark fabric of her jacket and worrying it between her fingers.

It doesn't fit, and that brings him full circle. It's him they're leaving out. _She's_ leaving out, because Ryan—if only Ryan—is too nice not to have at least _suggested_ they include him.

It's him, and that means he doesn't know nearly as much as he thought he did.

It's him, and he might not know anything at all.

* * *

><p>It falls on a Tuesday. It's the stupidest possible day of the week for something like that. Something important.<p>

It might already be over. Whatever celebration they have planned to usher her into the next decade, they might have already done it without him.

The weekend was jam-packed, though, so maybe not. Maybe they're saving it for the one to come. It's right before Thanksgiving, and lots of people do that, don't they? A blow-out with the Family You Choose and everyone resigning themselves to the stress of the last few weeks of the year.

Lots of people do that, and it's another thought that drags him down and down. Because he obviously doesn't make the cut, so that's probably it. The occasion is still to come and that's why no one's saying a word.

He doesn't need to be there. At the precinct. On the outskirts of the bullpen at what might well be the crack of dawn, if there were any sun at all.

There isn't, though. It's a miserable November Tuesday, and there's no body. There's nothing but an even more shocking amount of paperwork than usual. He doesn't know how that works.

Buckley was a public figure. It was a high-profile case, but a body is a body is a body, and he knows he should ask about it. The writer in him knows he should ask, if only to see her response. To see the way it puts steel in her spine. The way the fact that some bodies matter more than others rankles.

He's working on that. It's a plausible enough excuse, if he could only work his way up through the misery to pull it together, he could walk right up. He could drop into his chair and pester her.

He doesn't, though. He stands there on the outskirts of the bullpen with a greasy white bag and the biggest possible latte from her favorite place. He holds on to hope and hates himself for it.

"Castle!"

She's surprised to see him. Surprised by the cup even his broad palm has a hard time wrapping all the way around and the unexpected sprinkles that rain down on her desk when she tips the bag out.

"Thanks," she says. She's grateful enough, but it's a stilted, truncated thing. She blinks up at him, questioning.

It's her favorite. The coffee already came from blocks and blocks out of his way, and the doughnut is from a different place entirely. A bakery blocks from that. It's something she indulges in only rarely and she doesn't get it. She's still blinking up at him, tipping her head and trying to work it out as her tongue darts out to sweep sprinkles off her fingertip.

_Happy birthday._

It stalls on his tongue, and he doesn't know what it would have sounded like anyway. If it might have been sullen and bitter or pathetic and needy. A sad plea for . . . something. Inclusion or validation. Reassurance that they're . . . something.

But the moment goes. The words are stuck in his mouth. Montgomery crosses in the distance, and Beckett curls in on herself a little, looking sheepish when the Captain gives them the hairy eyeball. No one else says a thing beyond _Hey, Castle, _complete with puzzled frown.

The paperwork thing must be a big deal in its own right. He must be in the way. He turns back to her. There's a goodbye waiting somewhere in the back of his throat. A carefree parting shot with not nearly enough air to bring it out into the world.

"You . . . need something?" She's prompting him, but there's a trace of regret in it. A hint of apology as her eyes flick to the break room where Montgomery won't be stirring his coffee forever.

She's not sorry to see him, even if she doesn't get it. She might even be sorry to see him go, so there's that.

"Nothing," he says, false and bright. "Just . . . passing by."

He turns to go. It's lamer than lame. Something so obviously false. She runs her finger over the wrinkled logo of the bakery bag. She's not quite calling him out, but it's a question.

He goes. He doesn't have an answer, and he has to get out of here before this gets any more awkward than it already is. He strides away. Her voice follows. She calls after him.

"Castle?" There's a question in that, too, but he's going. He gives her a faint smile as he slumps against the back wall of the elevator.

"Thanks," she says again.

He flicks his fingers in recognition. It's all he can manage, and she probably doesn't even see it. The doors are closing already.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Give a Little Bit, Ch. 2

WC: ~1900 this chapter, ~3300 so far

Summary: "He looks up, and for the first time in more years than he can remember, he wants to tell her about it. He wants to unburden himself and let his mother fuss and give him terrible advice. He wants to sprawl on the floor at her feet and look up at her free hand fluttering and the world through the bottom of her martini glass. He wants to tell her all about the girl he likes." Three-shot set on Beckett's 30th birthday, shortly after Love Me Dead (2 x 09).

* * *

><p>He decides he doesn't care. That he's going to do something anyway because the two of them . . . because he just <em>is<em>. They can leave him out. They can do whatever without him, whenever they're doing it, but there's nothing stopping _him_ from marking the occasion somehow. That's what he decides.

Except it's not really a decision. It's more the inevitable outcome of moping. It's where he lands after a long, downhill slide from the precinct.

He goes home and does nothing. He goes out again at some point, too uncomfortable in his skin to sit or write or work on beating his personal best in balanced-pencil mustaches. The day gets away from him. He's been wandering the streets in this miserable stuff that's not quite rain. He realizes he's cold. That it's dark and he's soaked and he's chilled to the bone.

He turns into the nearest store front and blinks in the bright light. It's purple. A lot of it is, anyway. Tidy boxes in a deep, satiny shade. Smart diagonal ribbons tugged across their corners and neat stacks of gold foil things with jewel-tone labels piled next to them.

It's a chocolatier, he realizes. It smells amazing. There's a coffee bar way at the back. And judging from the peals of laughter rising up from a bright knot of girlfriends tottering on their stools, it's a _bar _bar, too. He steps through a wide doorway into another part of the space where wine racks rise in _X_s to the ceiling.

He wanders the shelves a while, picking up long, slim bars and thick, heavy chunks in neat wax wrappings. He hefts squat bottles of boutique spirits and peers at the close, elegant writing that sprawls across the tent cards. _Vosges Haut Chocolat. _There are pairings of every kind. Wafers and wine, truffles and whisky, bars and tall bottles of craft beer.

"Can I . . . help you?"

He spins, startled by the small, cautious voice at his elbow. There's a basket in his hand that he doesn't remember picking up. He certainly doesn't remember filling it, but he must have. It's heavy as hell, and the momentum almost takes him right into the tiny woman who belongs to the voice.

She looks at him expectantly. He looks down at the basket. At the boxes and bars and wedges and bottles. He flushes hot under his rain-soaked clothes. He feels like a fool.

"This," he says in a rush. "I want to buy it."

The woman's blonde head dips to look. "_All _this?"

She's doubtful. He's tired of doubtful.

"This," he says again. "All of it."

* * *

><p>His shoulder aches by the time he gets home. It's only a few blocks, but he's absolutely laden down.<p>

His mother calls to him from upstairs as he barrels into the loft. He answers, kind of. A noncommittal greeting tossed over his shoulder as he rushes for his office, grateful the main floor is empty. He closes the door behind him and falls into his desk chair with the bag at his feet.

He prods it with one foot. He's appalled by it. Intimidated by its sheer weight and the haphazard variety inside. He doesn't know what he was thinking, except it's her birthday and it _matters_.

Misery settles over him again. He unpacks methodically, bottles first. He pairs them with their smart boxes and ribbon-bound stacks of bars. He hefts net bags tied off with scraps of silk and arranges everything in a row all across the desk. He starts a second row when he reaches the end.

He rifles through his desk for note cards and spoils a half dozen. A dozen and another half. There are angry starts and sentimental ones. Torturously crafted inside jokes and abandoned dirty limericks. They're trying too hard. They reaching for something. Whatever it is the two of them are, and he's spoiled every single one until he's left with the pen hanging loose in his hand nothing but _Dear Kate_ at the top of the last of the cards he really likes.

He stares down at it long enough to get lost again. To miss the sound of heels clacking across the floor and the door being flung open dramatically.

"Richard, what on earth? I've been _calling _ . . . "

His mother breaks off. She takes in the strange array covering the desk and his despondent slouch.

He looks up, and for the first time in more years than he can remember, he wants to tell her about it. He wants to unburden himself and let his mother fuss and give him terrible advice. He wants to sprawl on the floor at her feet and look up at her free hand fluttering and the world through the bottom of her martini glass. He wants to tell her all about the girl he likes.

"It's her birthday," he says as she wanders closer. She stands beside him, and he doesn't try to hide the card. He doesn't try to hide the name. _Kate._

"Oh," she says, as she trails light fingers through his hair. "Oh, darling."

* * *

><p>It feels inevitable by the time he turns the corner on to her block. Not that he has a plan or anything. Not that he has the faintest idea how to actually do this. Still, it feels inevitable, even if he doesn't know what <em>it<em> is.

He stands just outside the spill of the streetlight and stares up at her building. He hasn't been here. Not inside, anyway. She'd made him wait in the car a few weeks ago when she needed to grab something.

He'd whined. She'd ignored him to dash up and back. Less than the five minutes she'd promised. She'd brought him a cookie.

_For being a good boy and staying in the car. _

He'd stared at the cookie sitting there in the palm of her outstretched hand.

_And what if I hadn't . . . _

She'd brought her other hand up, lightning quick, to snap it in half and shove one part in his gaping mouth. She'd popped the other in her own, but it didn't quite hide the smile.

He stares up at the building, now. He counts windows and has no idea what's next. He knows the apartment number. He makes an educated guess and there are two possibilities, one light, one dark.

She's not home. It hits him like lightning. He feels stupider than ever. She wouldn't be. Whether it's her night with the gang or something quieter with her dad, there's no way she'd be home. It's her _birthday. _

He's still wondering what to do. He wants her to have this, now he's here. Now that he's agonized and narrowed it down from half the damned boutique and given up on anything more than a straightforward _Happy birthday _ on the card. Her first name, his last, and those two words. Nothing more.

He wants her to know that it matters to him. That _she _matters to him, but there's no way she'll be home, and it's . . . tomorrow isn't good enough. He's stubborn and out of sorts and stupid and wet.

A sudden ruckus in the vestibule startles him. He'd no idea how close he'd wandered. The building's entrance is two glass doors and a bank of mailboxes in between. There's a woman with a boy of about five in tow. She's trying to wrangle a stroller, and the boy is bouncing at her side, getting under foot. Castle steps to the outer door. Her foot is wedged to hold it open. She's stretching back for the hooked handle of the stroller, but she can't quite make it.

Castle grabs the door handle and pulls it wide. It's just polite, at first. Nothing buy instinctive good manners, but he stares at the metal under his fingers like it's red hot. It's cheating or something. He wants Beckett to have the gift and the card and everything. He wants this stupidity out of his hands, but it feels _creepy. _Oozing in like this on the heels of coincidence feels creepy.

"Could you . . .?"

Castle's head snaps up. The woman is giving him a frazzled smile and nodding toward the inner door. The stroller's stuck there, and he hears the first warning signs of a baby about to wail.

"Of course." He looks down at the little boy. "You think you can hold this door for the lady?"

The boy eyes him suspiciously. "She's not a _lady_. She's my _mom.__" _

"Well, then, it's definitely your job to hold the door for her," Castle says solemnly.

The boy rolls his eyes, but does what he's asked. Castle steps into the vestibule and pulls the second door open, trapping himself between the glass and the metal wall of mailboxes.

The woman shakes her head and turns back for the stroller. The little boy is off and running the second her back hits the glass of the outer door to prop it open.

"Jamie!" She calls out as she whisks the stroller through and accomplishes an expert turn to point herself in the right direction.

She barely tosses a harried thank you over her shoulder before she's gone. Before he's alone, the inner door to Kate's building in one hand, the stupid bag in the other.

* * *

><p>He inches cautiously down the hall at first, then straightens up and tries for casual. He can't stand it, though. <em>This petty pace<em>, he thinks grimly, and murderous Scots feel like a bad omen. He rushes in long, awkward strides that carry him all the way to the end of the corridor. It's hopeless. He's burning up. He feels _so _stupid, and he just wants it _over with _at this point.

He maps the door numbers to the windows, and hers is the one with dark windows if he's done the math right. She's not home. He knew. He _knew_, but the disappointment is crushing anyway, as he stands there staring at the unkind curves of the metal numbers underneath the peephole.

He hefts the bag in his hand. He really, _really _doesn't have a plan. He can't just leave it, can he? The East Village isn't the East Village any more, but it's still New York. With the way his current luck is going, someone will call it in as a suspicious package.

He can't just _leave _it, but he just . . . he's too caught up in this now. It's too much a living thing. The image of her smiling across a table at her dad, both of them trying to keep it light. Both of them missing Johanna.

Another image, and by now he doesn't know whether it's better or worse. Her in a dress. Something short, black, and devastating. One long leg crossed over the other as she perches on a bar stool, laughing and brushing shoulders with Lanie. Pounding the bar and knocking back shots.

He's too caught up to turn back, and before he knows it, he's crouching down and shoving the thick envelope under the door. He's testing the handles of the bag and thinking that the shallow recess of the doorway will have to do for cover. He's sizing it up, trying to pick the corner with the thickest shadows when the handle cranks and the door swings open.

* * *

><p>AN: Thanks for reading and leaving feedback. Final chapter up tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

Title: Give a Little Bit, Ch. 3

WC: ~3000 this chapter, ~6300 total

Summary: "She stares. They both stare, but she's a lot more together about it. She's staring with a purpose. Her eyes travel from the white square in her hand, to the bag in his, to what has to be the stupidest expression in the history of stupid expressions on his face." Three-shot set on Beckett's 30th birthday, shortly after Love Me Dead (2 x 09).

* * *

><p>She stares. They both stare, but she's a lot more together about it. She's staring with a purpose. Her eyes travel from the white square in her hand, to the bag in his, to what has to be the stupidest expression in the history of stupid expressions on his face.<p>

"Castle . . ."

". . . it's your birthday . . ."

They blurt the words at the same time, and silence falls again like a blade. His shoulder jerks up. He holds his arm out, stiff before him. The bag swings jerkily between them. They're back to staring for a long painful moment when she lets out a breath that's almost a laugh.

"My birthday."

She gives him a thin, tight smile. The one he thinks of as _on the case_. He tips his head to the side, wondering in spite of himself what case it is she's on. What _exactly_ she's working out and how much trouble he's in.

"Bottega Falai," she says, and the smile doesn't exactly widen, but it pulls him in anyway. This morning. She noticed that it wasn't just the same old coffee and bear claw. She noticed, and he's caught. It's an interrogation now. "My birthday. That's why you went chasing all over the city this morning."

"Not . . . _all _over." He glances down at the bag and, of course, the logo has _Spring Street _in cursive right under the name. It's close to his place, but a long way from hers. Just like the bakery. Just like the coffee shop. He's kind of been chasing all over the city, and he doesn't want to talk about it. "I didn't think . . ." He drops his arm. The bag hits the side of his knee with a thunk. "Why aren't you out?"

That gets a lift of one eyebrow. It gets a _Why the hell are you here if you thought I wasn__'__t? _He thinks back to his crisis in the vestibule. That fleeting realization that showing up like this is kind of creepy. He's about to apologize. He's about flee or fling the bag at her and make his escape. He's about do _something,_ but just then she leans on the doorframe like she might stay awhile. Like it's not entirely creepy, because they might not be _I-was-in-the-neighborhood-and-thought-I__'__d-drop-by _friends, but they're not nothing to each other.

He's relieved. He's _so _relieved that he just drinks in the sight of her for longer than she'd usually let him. It's a red flag all its own. It sets his mind to working on what it is they're not saying.

She's wary, of course. In a constant state of readiness to be annoyed by him and . . . well . . . it's fair enough. Annoyer–Anoyee. It's kind of their default. But she's not unhappy to see him. She's wondering in spite of herself, too. She's wondering about all kinds of things, but there's something else.

She's sad, he realizes. He sees it in the curl of her arm from one hip to the other and the way she rests her head against the distressed wood for just a second. She's _sad,_ and it's so new—so unexpected that she'd actually show it—that he's suddenly way too close to reaching for her.

"Beckett?" He lets her name speak for him instead. A soft question that says he'll wait for as much of an answer as she wants to give.

"I don't really do anything for my birthday," she says finally. "Not in years."

"You _what_?" It comes out too loud. Annoyance flickers over her face. She cranes her neck to look down the hall, like the neighbors might come pouring out any second. He grimaces. An acknowledgment and apology both, but he's gobsmacked. He can't shut up. "You can't . . ." He adjusts his volume too far down and has to clear his throat. "You can't just . . . not_ do_ anything for your birthday. You can't . . . not."

She narrows her eyes. Her jaw goes the kind of hard that usually comes right before bodily harm. He straightens his shoulders and lifts his chin, though. He's going in.

"Not allowed, Beckett. Absolutely not allowed."

Her knee comes up and her toe kicks out at him. Her feet are bare and her toenails are a merry metallic green. He notes the incongruous detail and his heart gives a stumbling little throb, even as he steels himself for violence. She's just nudging at the bag, though, and his heart stumbles again at the gawky, teenage beauty of it.

"That chocolate?" She's tightening her arms around herself and pulling her lip between her teeth like it's inclined to pout and she's not inclined to let it. Like she's squirming more than a little and she hates it.

He nods. He tries to keep a sober face, but there's a grin wrapping him up. "_Good _chocolate. And whisky."

She chews her lip for a long moment, and he wonders which way things might go. She takes a breath, and he hears it stutter. She knows it, too. She fixes him with a glare and dares him to say something. Gives a short, sharp, _satisfied _nod when, for once, he holds his tongue.

"You wanna come in?"

* * *

><p>He's in her apartment. Beckett's. He keeps saying it to himself, like he needs the reminder.<p>

His fingers itch. He wants a pen. He wants to roam and touch things and drive her crazy with it, because who knows if she'll ever left him in again? Who knows?

But it's an opportunity already lost. She gestures, and he follows. He sits quietly in one corner of the couch. He sits obediently, just there, and keeps his hands still. He doesn't even look around. Not really. He only has eyes for her as she pads into the kitchen and raises on green-painted toes to reach a high-up shelf.

She's efficient at the sink. Rinsing and drying glasses with a flour-sack towel. She's back before he has any small talk at all at the ready. All he can think as she sets out two heavy-bottomed tumblers is that she must not use them very often. It's the last thing in the world he wants to say.

"Ice?"

Her lip curls as she asks. It's an afterthought, and he's absurdly glad he can honestly shake his head.

"Neat for me."

She nods approvingly, and pours just a little for each of them. She raises her glass to his and he sees the gleam in her eye. He thinks she likes this. Getting away with something on a school night. It touches off something in him. A hundred questions about what she's like. What her life has been like before this moment.

"You really don't?" It tumbles out, terrible and clumsy as glass touches glass, and if he had any cool at all, he'd have made some devastating toast. But it's November and his cool is hibernating, apparently. "Your birthday." He rushes on, wondering how much worse it can get. Not wanting to know, and utterly unable to shut up. "Nothing?"

She shakes hear head as she downs a healthy swallow of the whisky. She does a double take at the glass and her eyes slip closed. "Good _God, _Castle, that's . . ."

"It's . . ." He gestures to the unopened box on the wide ottoman she seems to use as a coffee table. "The chocolate. It's a high-rye bourbon, and they're supposed to . . . together. They're . . ." He trails off again, hiding his misery in a swallow of his own. She doesn't want to talk about it. He wants to let it go. Badly. _Badly_, but he just can't seem to. ""Really _nothing? _Not even . . ."

She doesn't answer. She doesn't say anything at first. Just sets her glass down and swings her feet from the couch cushion to the floor.

She's kicking him out.

It's his first thought, and he gathers himself up. He braces, but she's just going for the box. She's scrabbling at the bow with her short, neat fingernails. She's busying herself. Stalling, or maybe just hoping he _will _drop it if she waits him out. She tosses the box lid aside and peers intently at the tight-packed rows of pleated cups. She plucks out two and holds them to her chest, her palm curved protectively in front.

"One," she says, and he's lost. Dazzled by the quick, little girl movements an her narrow-eyed, wary grin. Weak with relief that somehow he hasn't ruined this fragile thing. He thought she was kicking him out, but she's not. She's extending a cautious hand toward him, like he might bite. The corner of her mouth is a wicked curve, and he can't say he isn't thinking about it.

"You get _one_, Castle." There's another stuttering little breath she'd rather he hadn't seen. "Because this was nice."

"Nice enough for _one_." He feels the heavy drop of the truffle in his palm and it gives him a little of himself back. A little bit of them. "Generous, Beckett.

"It's _chocolate_, Castle." She sinks her teeth into it. Her tongue laps at the oozing center and her eyes flutter shut. "You have no idea."

* * *

><p>She pours a little more whisky and a little more when that's gone. She breaks her word and lets him taste as she works her way through the array of chocolate. A nibble from each, before she pops the rest in her mouth like it's nothing. Like this isn't something that conjures up bathrobes and a rainy night in for two lovers who know each other inside and out.<p>

She talks. _They _talk and it's easy. It's low light and warmth wrapping around them, even though the wind is rattling the glass arcing over the kitchen. It's comfort, and it's not just the alcohol, though even the little bit loosens his own tongue after the miseries of the day. It's one moment and another. Something they've decided on— arrived at—on a Tuesday night. It's all a little unreal, and at the same time he feels surer of it. Surer of them than he has been since that terrible moment in the hospital.

_It__'__s about your mother._

The memory falls into a silence between them. He looks up, about to say something that will probably be stupid, but she's watching him. She's making up her mind.

"Nothing," she says. Her eyes drop. She focuses on peeling paper from another chocolate, like it needs all of her attention. "Not even . . . big ones."

He blinks at first. He knows right away that it's an answer at last. Like they've been talking about it all this time, and maybe they have. He knows and it keeps him quiet.

He's . . . honored. The usual things crowd up in him. More questions. The instinct to push. To ask if it's just since her mother. If her dad had already started drinking by the last time she crossed the threshold of decade and that's why. But he downs the last of the drink and nods, nothing more. He's honored that she's told him this much.

"What did you do for yours?" She steals a look at him out of the corner of her eye. There's gratitude in the way her shoulders sink and the breath flows out of her. She knows. She knows he wants to push and pry and needle, and she's grateful that he isn't. "Thirty's a ways behind you."

"Oh, _thanks _for that." He slaps at the couch cushion where her toes are curled up. "A _ways_."

She laughs into her knees. He loves it. The ease and the smile and the soft lamplight on her. He loves this moment, and he wants it to go on. He thinks about the question. He calls it up the date and tries not to wince. It's not all good. Not in retrospect.

"New York," he says. "I wanted to go to Disneyworld, but it was a Sunday." His nose wrinkles at the realization. Sunday might just be stupider than Tuesday for something like that.

"Alexis wouldn't let you?"

"School night." He nods and flicks his gaze at the whisky bottle. She hesitates, then shrugs. She pours a little more. "So we did New York. Touristy things."

"Statue of Liberty?" She rolls her eyes, but she's smiling underneath. She likes the idea.

He nods. He means to go on, but the answer is hard. She seems to realize it a moment after he does. The way the math works out.

"The towers?" she asks softly.

"Observation deck and everything." His hands shake a little. "Alexis was scared. It was windy and cold." His gaze drifts up to the rain pelting the curving glass over the room beyond. "A lot like today. November in April." He smiles at her, sees his own bleak expression reflected back. "We spent maybe a minute out there. Her little fingers were so white from holding on." He inhales against it. The force of the memory. "I told her we'd come back next year. That she'd be bigger and it wouldn't be so scary."

"But there was no next year. That's . . ." She shakes her head. "I hadn't been in years. Grade school field trip or something."

"Native. It's not something you do." He grimaces. "Did."

"Did," she echoes.

They fall quiet, then. It's not awkward, exactly, but he wonders if he should go.

"It wasn't my mom." She blurts it out suddenly. He was just on the verge of offering to leave her in peace, and he wonders if she knows. He wonders if that's behind her sudden confession. If she wants the moment to go on, too.

"Please don't tell me you've _never _done anything." It's his turn to blurt. He's flustered. He blushes, hard and hot. She might want the moment to go on, and he might have just killed it.

"No," she says quickly. Almost like she's just as worried. "Not never. I just . . . I was seventeen and too cool and I'd barely tolerate a meal with my parents and . . . it's terrible now." She sets her glass down. Firm and far away, like it might be to blame, but the words don't stop. "My dad sends a card, but early. A week or so early. And we have lunch, but never too close to the day. Just lunch, and we both pretend it's got nothing to do with my birthday. And it's . . . terrible."

"Beckett, I'm . . ." _Sorry. _It's the word he's about to say, but something else slips out. "No one since then? Your dad . . . I mean . . . that's . . . but your friends. _Lanie . . .__" _

He looks up at her, appalled at the way he's going on, but she's smiling, more or less.

"Lanie. She tried. A few years ago, I . . . " A blush creeps into her cheeks. "I shut her down pretty hard."

He looks at the litter of candy cups on the ottoman. The cork at a jaunty angle in the bottle and one couch cushion the short distance from him to her. He looks up, sharp and curious. Defiant, but willing to apologize if that's what she wants.

She smiles, though. It's sad and soft and more than a little bit of an effort, but she smiles.

"This was nice, Castle."

* * *

><p>He doesn't stay long after that. It's late, and he's silly with warmth and whisky and a long day that didn't end up at all where he thought it would.<p>

He's the one to push up from the couch. To sweep wrappers into one of the empty tumblers and gather things up to tidy. She's relieved, but reluctant, too. A little wistful as she shows him the trick to the dishwasher latch.

They linger by the door, her fingers toying with the safety chain as they compare notes on the chocolate.

"I can take the scotch truffles off your hands, Beckett. Save you from that coconut, because I'm a giver."

"Try it, Castle," she laughs. "And know that I'm armed 99% of the time."

He thinks of something he wants to know, and the question slips out. "How long will it last?" Her eyes go wide and his follow. He nods toward the kitchen. "The chocolate," he adds quickly. He tries to recover with a salacious lift of his eyebrows, but its clumsy. His hands are clammy and he wonders if he was ever any good at this kind of thing. "Are you a binger?"

"A savorer," she says with a grin too wide and too cute for it to weaken his knees the way it does. It's impossible. _She__'__s_ impossible with the serious, sober eyes she raises to his the next second.

"Thank you, Castle."

There's a sincerity to it that moves him. That makes him feel like he's made a difference, and he stands taller.

"My pleasure."

She eases the door open, finally, and he backs into the hall. They both hold their breath. It's the end of the moment, and there are so many ways it could go.

He leans in toward her, slow and deliberate, more than close enough to hear her breath catch. He could kiss her— _really _kiss her. Right now, he knows she'd let him.

She'd kiss him back. He's sure of it, but when his fingers come up to brush her hair back, they curve behind her ear and it's her cheek they tip up to meet his lips. It's so much less than he wants, and so much more than he thought he could have when he stumbled here in the rain. It feels right for now.

Her own hand comes up to cover his. To hold them both in place a moment longer, and that feels right, too.

"Night, Castle."

He hears the smile through the whisper. He's too dazed to see a thing, but he hears it.

"Happy birthday, Kate."

* * *

><p>AN: Thanks again for reading/reviewing.


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